A Caribbean Tale

We’d sailed out of Port Royal three days before, headed east on a brigantine with a hold of stolen rum. The island of Tortuga lay two days off as we made our way under a diaphanous sky.

I was drowsing at the helm when a crosswind whistled through the rigging and startled me. I checked my compass and realized we’d drifted north of the shipping lanes. Yellow rays slanted through the cloud breaks. A pod of dolphins dove through the algae blooms. Sulfurous whiffs hung in the air.

We were dreamers as well as cannoneers. Strange to say, for all our forty strong, none remember his childhood—apart from young Jack, who’d stowed away six months earlier, we had only the sea and a life of piracy to look back on.

I tossed Jack my spyglass, then sent him up the rat line to scout for British warships.

He scanned the ocean left to right and back.

“All’s clear of Man-of-War, captain, but there’s a vessel adrift on the starboard side.”

I squinted at him through the sun’s haze.

“A ship for the taking?”

“She’s a dory drifting on the edge of a fog bank… there's a woman aboard!"

I signaled him down through the shrouds, then called for Cradles to take the helm.

The old salt came fast to the wheel, stood motionless, torn sleeves fluttering at his elbows, and his face ablaze with rum blossoms. He was the best of loyal mates and sick with scurvy.

"Damn you, Cradles, bring her about!"

“Aye, captain, boom about. But wary say I. What's a lady's business on open seas unless she be a mermaid—shapeshifters are out and about, and I'd sooner sail roaring forties into the teeth of fifties than bring them aboard."

Perhaps his sickness had sullied his thinking. I ordered Jack to fetch him a measure of rum from my cabin.

“I'm obliged, sir,” said Cradles, wiping his mouth and laying hard into the wheel.

The Patron’s bow churned seafoam as she came around.

I stood on the forecastle, using my glass to mark the woman. She was a suspicious lovely creature, standing proudly amid the dory with flaming hair, dark eyes, and constellations of freckles on her face and arms. A breeze whipped her locks. Seabirds circled.

Pickles, the parrot, swooped from the mizzen mast and lit on my shoulder.

We pulled alongside the dory. She called in a lilting voice.

"Ahoy, Captain, these are strange latitudes, and I fear I'm in desperate straits."

“Odd that you know me for a captain?”

“Perhaps you’ve got a captain’s bearing,” said the beauty.

“Heed my warning; she’s a mermaid,” whispered Cradles.

“She, she-she’s a right lovely woman,” said marble-mouth Tom—the tallest of our number and the strongest in battle.

I ordered Jacob’s ladder over the side.

“Aye, captain, d-droppin’ away.”

She grabbed an oar and paddled for it.

Once within reach, she leaped on and started up—not too soon, either, as a shark breached and snapped at her petticoats.

Pete-Plank tossed a grappling hook and secured the dory. As black as midnight he was. He’d once wrapped an Ivory Coast slaver in more chains than the ponce could swim with.

The beauty hurdled over the rail, landing shoeless on the deck. My men mustered on the waist deck, craning their necks for a closer look, but their grins wilted quickly, accounting for an unlovely deadness in her eyes.

“Take care with this, captain,” Cradles said under his breath. “She’s a necromancer.”

Patched up, Tom, mad from losing an eye to shrapnel, stepped to the lady, sweeping a hand through the air as if brushing away an apparition. She grabbed a marline spike and struck his head.

"Will you have more?" she hissed, “By your stink, I have it you’ve been swimming in sewers.”

He stumbled away as she pulled the knife from his waistband and slashed the air.

"I'll cut you to pieces!"

Tom held up his hands and fell back amongst the crew, blood trickling down his forehead.

The lady tossed her hair.

“If you fear Davey Jones, you’ll come no closer."

By then, I had a hand on the hilt of my cutlass, but the lady tossed the knife, and I relaxed.

She greeted me with a cruel smile.

"Peculiar skies, eh captain?" she said, stepping to a rail and staring to the offing.

"Aye, Miss, peculiar enough. What are your circumstances if you don’t mind my asking?”

She turned quickly.

"Do you dream of your past, captain? Perhaps I’m party to a misadventure.”

She glanced at the crew, then studied my eyes.

"You equivocate,” said I. “A misadventure, you say?”

"Some called it a murder,” returned she.

"You don’t say. But a murder of whom?"

"It wasn’t a whom; it was a thing—a rancid harlot named Tink. I stepped on her as she flitted fornicatiously about, ground her into the dirt as Pan slept. Upon awakening, he called for his blithering slut. When he discovered her, smashed and broken, great tears rolled down his cheeks.”

"Pan?" I asked.

"How quickly you forget your past, El Capetian."

I took a step back.

“I’ve seen you before; remind me where it was?”

“In the depths of a forgotten lagoon,” replied the nymph.

Pickles flew from my shoulder and landed on a spar.

"Fallen fairies tell no tales!" he squawked.

“Nor truths do mermaids utter,” said I.

“You are clever, captain,” said she, in the act of pulling a flintlock from the folds of her skirt and aiming at my bird.

"I'm terribly sorry about this.”

I reached to stay her hand, but an unseeable force held me in place. A shot rang out. Pickles burst apart and fell into the ocean. She plucked a feather from the air and blew it in my face.

"It’s no use crying over spilled milk, blown-up birds, or fornicatious fairies," taunted she as I reached for the pistol and received a backhand that sent me crashing into the main mast.

She batted her eyes and looked askance.

"Careful, El Capetian, I’ll waste no time sending you to the bottom."

“I warned of this!” Cradles shouted.

"How very loathsome," she said, sniffing. “I call for this man’s execution. He’s good for keel hauling and nothing better."

As I came to my senses, I saw her plain.

"Giselle!” I cried, “Queen of Oceanids.”

She bared her perfect pearls and curtsied.

“I am she, and I’ll soon see you in hell, El Capetian.”

With that, she dove over the larboard side and disappeared beneath the waves.

Naturally, I was thunderstruck, as was the crew, whose startled expressions described their uneasiness.

At the same moment, young Jack called out from the stern.

“Sails in the fog, captain!”

There was little time to think. A salvo of cannon balls crossed our decks and vanished in the deep.

“It’s Queen Anne’s Revenge!” Mr. Smee shouted.

He was my boatswain, the mildest of our lot, and teetotaler to the mix.

I ordered full sails, and my men fell to the task. The galleon blasted away but was wanting in maneuvers. Nor could she match our speed, and we distanced her in short order. The crew let go with a cheer, and Jack swelled with pride at Blackbeard's bamboozlement.

I saw nothing better than to give him the helm.

“Aye, captain,” he said expansively.

“Carry on then, Jack.”

But I was bemused by Pickles' disappearance.

I touched his perch but found only emptiness, a lingering memory, as I went below to study my charts.

***

We sailed under strong winds, and I came on deck as night approached.

The wind was down to a listless breeze.

Cradles took up his Squeezebox.

***

Oh, if only me mother hadn't

Jumped off the quay

And sank to the bottom

While they pulled me away

I'd still be a lubber on land and

Not sea. And not have the hangman

Still following me…

***

We drifted along under an unnaturally bright moon. Presently, an island with ghostly white shorelines and a darkened jungle appeared in the distance.

"It’s an odd moon for Caribbean waters," said Mr. Smee; in the distance, an island with ghostly white shorelines and a darkened jungle appeared alongside me in the bow.

“Yes,” I said, “uncharted. What is the hour, Mr. Smee?"

"Three a.m. Captain.”

"Fetch my sextant, Jack."

Jack disappeared down the companionway and returned with my instrument.

I turned the filters, calibrated the barrels, and adjusted the mirrors, but for all my efforts, I couldn't draw the moon to the sea.

“Drop a sounding line, Tom.”

Tom took the starboard platform. "On the chains, Captain."

"Plummet away,"

"Aye, Captain, b-by the mark, s-she's seven fathoms, but by the deep, she's eight. An uneven b-bottom, sir."

"Prepare to drop anchor! Bring her broadside and have her steady. Cradles...unlash the anchor. Drive the wedge, Pete-Plank. All hands clear. Have on her by God. Let her dredge.” I shouted.

Pete-Plank dealt the wedge a blow. The anchor plunged into the ocean, dragging the chain from the windlass and through a scupper.

I took up my glass and restudied the shoreline, considering the presence of an ambush.

She's three hundred yards off. I see no movement beyond breezes in the treetops. I’d wait for dawn, then test her tree lines with a taste of our cannons.

Dawn rose, and Mr. Smee gave my orders.

“On the captain’s command!” he shouted.

The salvos sent shock waves through the air, and the Patron rolled with recoil. A thousand birds rose from the jungle, and I watched them settle.

"I'll look closer at this island, Mr. Smee; see to the ship discipline and muster me a guard of four seamen. See to it their powder is dry."

I called Cradles to join us. Moments later, we lowered away in a pair of dories.

We pushed off and locked our oars. A fog swirled about as we rowed to the break. We leaped from the boats as they bottomed, then dragged them ashore.

Sand stretched north and south to the vanishing points. The jungle lay before us. I looked seaward but saw only the glimmering ocean and its line on the horizon. I called Cradles as we hauled out the craft.

"The ship," I shouted, raising my voice over the break. I pointed toward the sea.

"She's gone—sailed around the island, Captain."

"After having dropped anchor. What of the fog bank?"

"Gone as well, Captain."

I ordered the guard to stay with our boats, then walked to the jungle's edge with Cradles in tow. The foliage seemed impenetrable. A stand of palm-like trees swayed. A fruit fell to the ground, and I picked it up, tearing its skin, inhaling a glistening spume that awakened lost memories. The jungle's flora rioted, shrinking away or clamping carnivorously at the touch of a hand or foot. I glanced at Cradles.

"Oh, mother!" he cried, becoming a younger before my disbelieving eyes. He ran into the foliage. I followed, but he’d vanished.

I stumbled on until I encountered a pool, where I fell to my knees and splashed water on my face. The drops hovered in the air like tiny fires, then shot into the jungle, pulling iridescent trails in their wakes. I regained my feet and pushed on, covering my ears to whispers as the maze fell into position behind me.

I reached for my compass and held it steady. The needle spun in every direction. The sky was lost beyond the canopy. I trudged on as the whispers gained in volume. I heard splashing and laughter. I lay on my stomach and crawled toward the source. A lagoon lay before me, surrounded by flattened boulders on which mermaids sunned themselves while tying flowers in their hair and slapping variegated tails on the rocks.

I heard a rustling above and looked up to see Pan smiling at me with a mouth of perfectly tiny teeth. He leaped to the ground and drew his sword.

"En Garde, Hook!"

The next moment, he threw down his weapon and paced about in an absolute fluster of energy and impatience. This is to say nothing of the clothes he wore. His pants, an arrangement of leaves sewn together with cobwebs or something of the like, fell shy of his ankles by several inches. He wore a waist jacket of the same material and a vine for his belt from which hung his sword’s scabbard.

He turned to me with a frown, then threw his arms up in exasperation.

“You’ve ruined the game!"

“Game?” I asked.

“Your sword, Hook, where in blazes is it! You’ve come unprepared, and now I’ve forgotten the plans I’d made for the remainder of the day. Where is your hook? Must I imagine that into existence as well? For the love of Kensington Gardens, you’ve shown up unarmed!”

I pointed to myself, saying, “I’m Hook, and you’re….”

“Pan!” he shouted, throwing me a sword that suddenly appeared in my hand. “Square for battle!”

We circled each other… warily. The clash of swords reverberated in my head and in the surrounding jungle. I lunged only to be parried.

Round we went.

“Oh, crumbs,” said Pan. “Is this the best I’m to expect? You seem seedy, old chum. There’s nothing of the brick left in you.”

“I…? You’re gone to pot, and where’s your brood… off taking a piss?”

“Scuttling your ship, if you must know,” returned Pan.

And then my wife shook me awake.

“Up and at them, sleepyhead. The kids are dressed for Little League practice… and who in the world is Mr. Smee?"